Northern Tanzania Motorcycle Trip

Hello! Welcome to Tanzania! We will be picked up from Kilimanjaro International Airport in Moshi and taken to our accommodation in Arusha. The arrival day in Africa is intended as a "chill out day", before we start our motorcycle trip through Tanzania the next morning.

After breakfast, we will be picked up and taken to the starting point of our motorcycle tour through Tanzania. This morning, we will ride the first kilometers from Arusha on and off road past pine forests and waterfalls in the region of “Ngarenanyuki”, where the Meru people are at home, and have a snack. With a little luck, we will see the first herds of giraffes and buffaloes on our way to our day's destination, and if we are very lucky, the first elephants. We will pass the village of Kamwanga with Kilimanjaro in the background, where we can take a short "tea stop" and enjoy a good view at the foot of Kilimanjaro with impressive sights of the mountain. Around noon, we will pass the well-known starting point for the Kilimanjaro climb – the Marangu Route, also known as the Coca-Cola Route. Continuing towards Lake Chala, where we will have a beautiful view of the Kibo and Mawenzi peaks of Kilimanjaro, we may, with a bit of luck, see mountain primates like the black-and-white colobus monkeys or the diadem monkeys (claw monkeys). Our accommodation today will be tents. Our day's destination is Lake Chala, where allegedly crocodiles were "let loose" by the British explorer E.S. Georgan, which due to the lack of sand and thus breeding grounds was a failed undertaking. In the meantime, there are no longer any crocodiles in Lake Chala, which you can happily try out during a swim in the lake. If there are still some, you'll be the first to know ;- Participants who do not want to share the adventure can enjoy the evening at the lodge with a sundowner.

This morning, after breakfast, we will explore off-road the eastern Pare Mountains, which, with its uniqueness and its species of animals and plants that can only be found here, has the status of a UNESCO biosphere reserve for Tanzania. From Lake Chala, we will ride through the well-known village of Kifaru (Swahili: Rhinoceros) over the highlands of the Pare Mountains through three districts of Tanzania, where we will finally arrive in the last district at Same in the Elephant Motel. From our lodge today, we have a spectacular view of the South Pare Mountains and the gateway to the Mkomazi National Park as well as the South Pare Mountains and the Shengena Forest. We will end the evening as always with an impressive view while enjoying a sundowner.

For us, it goes off-road on the motorcycle uphill into the Tanga region. The ride to Lushoto, which was called "Wilhemstal" during the German colonial period, will be incredibly great! The view on this side road through the “Switzerland of Africa” is breathtakingly beautiful. This area has been referred to since 1985 as "the Eastern Arc", which describes the forested crystalline mountains in eastern Tanzania and southeastern Kenya that are influenced by the climate of the Indian Ocean. The Eastern Arc Mountains are the mountain ranges in East Africa that extend from Tanzania to Kenya and display a legendary biological diversity and unique ecosystems due to the multitude of endemic plants and rare animal species. The Eastern Arc Mountains play an important role in the preservation of biodiversity and contribute globally to nature conservation. The Germans discovered the charm of Usambara at the end of the 19th century, where we will take our small lodge and be pampered with a delicious dinner. Depending on the tour flow, there may still be time during the day to visit the Amani Biosphere Reserve, which has preserved a unique animal and plant world due to its seclusion, we will simply let ourselves drift and enjoy the most beautiful time of the year on this tour.

Near the small town of Lushoto in the Usambara Mountains lies the village of Mambo, whose inhabitants and community are characterized by a strong connection to nature and a harmonious coexistence, which is considered to be unusual. The traditionally agrarian life and economy of the Mambo "community" primarily consists of subsistence farming, in which staple foods like maize, beans, cassava, and bananas are grown on the above-average fertile soils, and cattle such as cows, goats, and chickens are occasionally raised, which would receive the „Super triple seal BIO high ten“ in Europe ;-) During the colonial period, the area was part of German East Africa with a significantly important role in the trade of ivory and slaves. What remains from the dark colonial era are the architectural remnants of German settlements with historical buildings. Since independence in 1961, agriculture, and we as travelers are the most important economic branch, meaning: There are many reasons to stay here for a day and burn the clichéd TIA (this is Africa) scene of the Usambara mountains into the hard drive between your ears. It should be a day in Africa, which you should enjoy with time and curiosity, or simply hang out at the lodge.

The motorcycle group starts the engines and we go downhill from the "highlight" of the Tanzania motorcycle trip down to sea level, on the way on and off-road on beautiful challenging sandy tracks to Pangani. Depending on the interactive routing / travel flow, there may be a small tour into the history of Tanzania with a visit to an Arab fort at the river mouth of Pangani, where fresh and saltwater mix into brackish water. The local guide will show us the area from the fish market to the boat builder. You will experience the African wilderness differently while spending the night in the bush. Dinner will be prepared on a typical African basis; the sundowner is by the campfire – what an enduro rider expects on motorcycle and adventure travels in Africa – and you can try to join the Maasai in jumping or dancing. A MUST for every motorcyclist who wants to embarrass themselves in front of their bike buddies 😉 Your time and your experiences are the most valuable in life, which you should fully enjoy on this „motorcycle tour“!

For our enduro travelers, we have besides adventure the fascinating African nature still a „delicacy“. Today it is a community project: The Mswakini School Project which we will visit and you may become aware again of the „educational luxury“ we live in Europe. We will travel, more or less at a relaxed pace, through the ecosystem of Tarangire and Manyara. The Maramboi Tented Camp offers an endless view of hilly golden grasslands and palm-fringed islands between Tarangire and Lake Manyara. A visit is a must for anyone interested in the evolution and origins of humanity; let your tour guide explain the rift valley to better understand the tectonic structure of Tanzania and Africa. We will spend the two days somewhat relaxed and use our camp as a base for a safari drive in Tarangire National Park. Those who wish can actively contribute to the Mswakini School Project to support the local community. As we know, education is the key to a better world, which we are allowed to „not“ experience on our travels.

After a nice and tasty Tanzanian breakfast, we start the enduros and roll on the worn-out knobby tires along the majestic rift valley to the Hadza community, a group of hunters and gatherers in East and Southern Africa. If we are „proper“, the Hadza will welcome us in their traditional habitat and we may have the opportunity to hunt with them at sunset in their traditional way.

Along the edge of the gravel paradise (quote from an endurist), we travel with the motorcycle group into the endless expanses of the Maasai savannah. The goal of the day: the Engaruka Women Empowerment Project. Along the route, we will „drift“ through the Great African Rift Valley, which runs from Lake Manyara, Lake Eyasi, Lake Natron, and Lake Tanganyika across Tanzania. An impressive geological phenomenon is the stark volcano Ol Donyo Lengai, this active volcano is referred to and revered by the Maasai as "Ngai". At the foot of the volcano extends the desert landscape, dotted with the remains of extinct volcanoes and the sparkling Lake Natron, which stretches to the Kenyan border. With your hand on the gas, your eyes on the trail, this motorcycle travel section is certainly safer than capturing the spectacular views. We will take our time at the stops to admire nature and one of the inspiring community projects, depending on the travel day and the amount of flat motorcycle tires.

And again a highlight of the motorcycle trip through Tanzania, where we will spend the vacation day in a gorge at Lake Natron with a small natural phenomenon with waterfalls, natural pools, and slides. The nature lovers among the participants will experience another vacation day with the strange cacti, lush ferns, and palms, as well as bubbling jacuzzi-like pools, and perceive the gorge reached as a huge natural amphitheater, as „Nature Flash“. Here springs the source that feeds pools and beaches; it's time to drop your pants and jump into the pools to enjoy a shower under the waterfalls. At the end of the day, we will return to camp for an early barbecue as we will enter the park the next day either with a Land Cruiser or in the worst case with a Defender off-road.

After breakfast, the motorcycle safari starts to Serengeti National Park, where we will reach the lodge before sunset. With the motorcycle trip, we have now arrived deep in the heart of this famous migration corridor, which has become a little “insider tip” for travelers due to the wide open spaces, bright blue skies, and animal-populated landscapes. For this reason, we will take our time for the legendary Serengeti, dreaming of "Old Africa", and take our time to see large prides of lions, numerous elephant families, giraffes, gazelles, monkeys, and eland antelope, basically the entire range of African wildlife in impressive numbers.

We have planned the travel time so that we can explore a small part of the 30,000 square kilometers of Serengeti National Park with wildlife observations. The great diversity of Serengeti wildlife will be experienced by the motorcycle group on a safari in a 4x4 off-road vehicle looking for buffaloes, hippos, elephants, giraffes, antelopes, Thomson's and Grant's gazelles, and lions. In the dry and rainy season, the spectacular migration of the wildebeests is an incredible spectacle with thousands of animals traversing the Serengeti; regardless of the migration of wildlife, we will let the big cats lions, leopards, cheetahs, as well as rhinoceroses, gazelles, antelopes, and massive elephants pass by in hundreds in front of the camera lens. TIA, this is Africa!

The motorcycle group is on the way to the Ngorongoro Crater, where our lodge is dramatically built on the edge of the crater. Below is a breathtaking panoramic view of the world’s largest, unflooded, and unspoiled caldera crater. The Ngorongoro caldera marks the ancient walls of a collapsed volcano, which is said to have once been the size of Kilimanjaro. In 2010, I traveled for the first time the now completely closed circular crater, which offers a breathtaking view from the crater rim into the approximately 15 kilometers wide steep-walled crater that falls over 2,000 feet. Here we are at about 7,500 feet above sea level, and we have reached the highest point of our motorcycle trip through northeastern Tanzania. On the way, you will visit Olduvai Gorge and Dr. Leakey's Museum or drive directly to the lodge and let the view simply impress us.

After brunch, we leave the lodge, the last travel day on the enduros has begun. The motorcycle caravan rides relaxed the last kilometers back to the tour start in Arusha. The last five hours on the motorcycle are for many travelers the moment when they reflect on the experiences of the motorcycle trip again. From experience, I can assure you now that in the next, these experiences will often flash through your thoughts while you are at the helm, in the car, or on the motorcycle. Our penultimate stop will be at one of the orphan centers we support with our tour donations. This donation comes from part of the proceeds for the safari with you.

Depending on your departure time, there is one last Tanzanian breakfast or a roll as a travel snack to Arusha Airport. You take off and have one last glimpse of fascinating Tanzania. We hope to have sparked your interest with the rough tour description; it is important for us that you know this tour description should be seen as a rough tour proposal, which the guide will always individually adapt to the conditions.